Pages

Tuntland calls Kay Grinsteinner

November
16, 2010

Tuntland
established that Grinsteinner is a certified public accountant currently
working as a controller for a Wind Power company and she had 2 and 1/2 years
experience working as an internal auditor before working at WSI.Grinsteinner reported to the CEO for
administrative activities but reported to the internal audit chair at WSI's
board with her actual audit reports.She
said over time she reported to several different people.

She said
typically internal auditors looked for problems with compliance but they can be
consultants within an organization.She
said that the position of internal auditor is very common within large
organizations and that the role is to do independent risk analysis where an
independent auditor will consult with the board or management but does not abdicate
to them.

She said
specifically at WSI she was tasked to follow recommendations made in two
previous audit reports.When the first
audit report exploded in the media, she wondered what she'd gotten into as she
was a new employee and so she read through years of old reports.She said there was no limit to the areas she
could look at.For example in human
resources were proper protocols followed for hiring, were background checks
being done.With regard to specific
performance, were taxpayer dollars at risk.She said that the function of an internal auditor is to help management
assess and mitigate their risks appropriately.

Attorney
Tuntland handed her a copy of the internal audit charter revisions dated June
18, 2007.He stated that the document
had been started before she was hired and that the former internal auditor had
been frustrated that it took so long.The document noted "adherence to highest professional standards and
code of ethics".She said that the
code of ethics comes from the Institute
of Internal Auditors and
that there is a body of work of professional standards for internal
auditors.

She said
that the core expectation of her job was to get the audit recommendations
addressed as the legislature was monitoring WSI.That meant that she followed up with the
State Auditor's office to make sure they were in compliance.She said she typically would work with
various people throughout WSI starting with executives at the highest level who
then would send her to departments or certain staff for specific records.

Tuntland
then asked about the search of Mark Armstrong's office.Grinsteinner said to put it into context that
the State Auditor's report had issues as to how open records requests were
being handled and that that spilled over into HR because of how personnel files
were being handled.

Grinsteinner
said information was being routed to all employees as media with links to the
Dakota Beacon.She knew Armstrong was a
friend of the Beacon's editor, Steve Cates, and she was concerned about the
nature of articles which had negative comments about current and former WSI
employees and the state auditor.She
found this distasteful and questioned its appropriateness as she wondered why
WSI was being pointed to a republican right wing newsletter.

Her
internal auditor subordinate said that she had taken something into Armstrong's
office and saw things on his desk that she questioned.It looked like information related to other
research.She was not sure why Armstrong
had that information as she had privately taken it to the audit chair.She then worried that the internal audit
function was compromised and broken.

She later
learned from HR that open records requests consisted of a box underneath
Armstrong's desk which was haphazard and not well managed and there were other
open records requests he kept in a desk drawer.She said she had to put these open records requests on the front burner
as she was getting complaints from employees.

She
testified that she and Peltz and Long were in her office when she remarked she
needed to go in and search Armstrong's office.

She went
back to Armstrong's office approximately 7:00 p.m. that evening, used her key
card, and was aware of camera systems so that people would know she was in the
office.The door was not locked and she
did not turn the lights on but used a flashlight.She said the office looked like someone took
a dumpster and turned it upside down on his desk.

She said
she was looking for things she had been told were pertaining to the audit she
was working on.She said specifically
there were law books open to specific pages she had referenced in her notes to
internal audit chair Evan Mandigo and that concerned her because this
information was now being routed back through the communications director.She said since she had concerns about
Armstrong and management, to take those concerns to the audit committee chair
only to have the information fed back to the same management was not
appropriate.

She said
the specific code that she was concerned with had to do with false payroll
reports being filed and that Armstrong would have no connection with payroll
reports.She said she looked for the box
of open records requests because of employees' complaints of mishandling of
their personnel files, that it was very difficult to tell if he had a system of
tracking his open records as paper was spilling out of boxes and his desk.

When she
found Armstrong's journal, she thought it looked like a log of events and
perhaps this was his log of what records he had sent to whom.On the surface it looked like a business
record in a typical steno notebook.

She said
that Long came into WSI later and startled her.She said that she handed the notebook to Long and she was still
searching for more open records requests.

She
thought that Long started reading the journal when he was in the copy room and
found the passage regarding secret documents.She said that particular passage didn't concern her, what she read later
concerned her more as she thought Armstrong was trying to get things out to the
media on the sly.In particular, the
discussion on Steve Cates concerned her as she wondered whether Cates was
getting billed for the information.That
came to the heart of the state auditor's recommendations about how records were
getting charged differently according to the requestor.

Grinsteinner
testified that Long asked if he could take a copy of the journal and she had no
problem with that.

A few
days later Long told her he wanted to turn the journal over to BCI's Mike
Quinn.

She said
that she did not enter Armstrong's office at Long's request, but she had
received many complaints from Human Resources and other employees about these
open records requests as well.She said
that she learned later that a search warrant had been executed to search
Armstrong's office.She knew that Long
had been contemplating giving the journal to Quinn and advised him to consult
with a private attorney first.Grinsteinner
left for a business trip in Las Vegas
and did not return to WSI office until the following Wednesday.She said she had a discussion with board
member Mark Gjovig who was now her new boss.Mandigo was her boss on Friday when she left work, but Gjovig was her
new boss when she returned.

She said
she was interviewed by the legal department's Rob Forward about going into
Armstrong's office.She said that she
materially told him what had occurred, but did not reveal that she had searched
with a flashlight.She said that she did
not turn on the lights because she did not want people to know she was
there.She said it was not her intent to
disclose to the public that she went into Armstrong's office and that she
needed to assess whether the audit function was broken.Either she had to figure out a way to present
this to the board or she had to resign and leave the organization because it
was too broken for her to work for.She
said she felt terrible when she realized that the journal went public.She also said that she didn't worry about how
the employees would react to her search because it is not unusual for internal
auditors to look at things without the employees being aware of it.

She said
she was fired in March of 2008 and that 5 WSI employees were terminated on the
same day.She stated she had filed a
request for whistleblower protection after she'd returned from Las Vegas.

CeaseSPIN.org News Quality Rating System

Top 40 Best Documentaries

About Me

Sue Wilson tells important stories which move politicians to act. She is the Emmy winning director of the media reform documentary "Broadcast Blues" and editor of SueWilsonReports.com.
Broadcast Blues sets its sights on media policy, and www.SueWilsonReports.com turns a critical eye on the media itself.
She recently formed an activist site, http://www.MediaActionCenter.net